On Wednesday, 18th of September 2019 we were honoured to host the adventurer and extreme athlete Ash Dykes, who presented this year's Shackleton Lecture.

Trekking 1,500 miles across Mongolia alone confronting the elements whilst pulling an 18-stone homemade trailer full of supplies. Traversing Madagascar's length of 1,600 miles whilst facing crocodile-infested rivers, bandits, and the deadliest strain of Malaria.

Today marks the day dual world-first record holder, adventurer and extreme explorer Ash Dykes crosses the finish line on his latest, 350-day 4,000-mile outing where he's taken over 8 million steps to walk into achieving his third world-first record.

It is anticipated, that if all continues to go well, Ash will cross the finish line, where the Yangtze River meets the East China Sea, near Shanghai, on August 8th 2019.

It feels surreal to be this close to finishing.

There has been so much energy, effort, time, blood, sweat and fear put not only into the one year of undergoing the expedition but also two years beforehand, for the planning, training and logistics.

An update directly from the side of the Yangtze River, in China: I am now 88% through Mission Yangtze! I only have around 520 miles remaining of the 4,000-mile trek.

After an exciting chapter, where Ash pushed on from Chongqing, through to Wanzhou, Fengjie, Yichang, Yueyang, he now reaches Wuhan (one of China’s megacities, known as one of the furnace cities, as temperatures can reach 40DC, plus humidity on top).

During his Mission Yangtze UK adventurer ASH DYKES is not only focussing on ‘walking the Yangtze’ but he is also trying to interact with people along the way, giving interviews or speeches in order to share all aspects of the journey so far.

On 23rd March, Ash was flown to Shanghai by WUJI, which is a cobranded clothing range between Adidas and international Movie Star Jet Li.

Death-defying British adventurer Ash Dykes has today reached safety at the halfway point of his mammoth world first expedition, having faced immense threats to his safety whilst attempting to walk the entire length of China’s Yangtze River in just a year.